


Mr Norrell dines away from home

by equestrianstatue



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4537935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The continuing and increasingly insolent presence of John Childermass was a great source of consternation to Mr Lascelles, who was much disgusted to see his own advice being passed over time and again for that of a man of the lowest standing and most disagreeable nature. Something had to be done about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr Norrell dines away from home

Mr Lascelles had always been pleased to reflect that he was in a number of ways quite dissimilar to Mr Drawlight, although they had upon certain occasions shared a common goal. Their befriending of Mr Norrell was chief among these collaborations, and while Drawlight had served a most useful purpose in the matter, Lascelles had for some time looked forward to the point at which he could be disposed with. His own influence over the venerable gentleman could then proceed unabated.

The continuing and increasingly insolent presence of John Childermass was therefore a great source of consternation to Mr Lascelles, who was much disgusted to see his own advice being passed over time and again for that of a man of the lowest standing and most disagreeable nature.

One of the aforementioned ways in which Lascelles stood apart from the vacuous Mr Drawlight was his ability to see with no particular difficulty to the core of a person: to examine the softest, fleshiest, most vulnerable parts of their inevitably distasteful selves. This talent he found both useful in his dealings with others and most entertaining, for he liked very much to know a good deal more about a person than that person believed he did.

At the heart of John Childermass, however, Lascelles failed to find the soft and defenceless thing that was buried deep beneath the surface of almost all men. Instead he saw something gnarled, dark and twisted, much like a tree root sunk in some deep forgotten earth, and grown ugly beneath the forest floor. This had something to do, Lascelles assumed, with Childermass's northern origins, and the connexion those people seemed to maintain with all that was wild and nature-born – although he could not say the same for Mr Norrell, who it must be admitted had lived all his life until now within the grey-green sweep of Yorkshire. But what Lascelles saw in Childermass did not worry him, for he also knew that contained within the core of himself was something akin to a metal blade, bright with polish and cruelly sharpened. And while Lascelles had never himself gone so far as to chop at a tree, he had seen it done by some lower people, and he had quite a thorough understanding of the comparative properties of wood and steel.

Childermass, then, must be dealt with. But how? He shewed no very obvious signs of weakness with which Lascelles could do his usual work, having as he did no particular reputation to be damaged, and remaining as he did quite unmoved by any remark made upon his appearance, manner, knowledge, or state of servitude, none of which it appeared he viewed as a cause for concern. Indeed, Lascelles's attempts at undermining Childermass in Mr Norrell's presence seemed if anything to entertain him, if the sardonic smile he displayed upon these occasions could be taken for such a reaction.

Mr Lascelles decided that since this avenue of disgracing Childermass in front of his employer bore no easy fruit, a more direct attack, during which propriety need not curtail his tongue, might be more successful. So he called one evening at Hanover-square full in the knowledge that Mr Norrell was at that time dining away from home, and was gratified to be shewn into the sitting-room by Childermass himself, who bade him make himself comfortable. Mr Lascelles observed, as usual, that this was said to him in a way that seemed to convey that Childermass wished him the very opposite of that comfort, a talent in Childermass's particular delivery of the English tongue that Lascelles rather resentfully admired.

"I think that I should like to visit Mr Norrell's library," said Mr Lascelles, not taking the seat that he had been offered.

"As you wish, sir," said Childermass, with a scant bow that again was somehow redolent of the inverse of a bow's intended meaning, and led him there.

In the library Childermass did not, as a good servant should, ask whether Lascelles might need any little thing to make him comfortable as he awaited Mr Norrell's return. He did not even, as a bad servant might, leave the room without making such an enquiry and leave Lascelles alone. He remained instead leaning in a most offensive way against the frame of the open doorway. The look he gave Lascelles was of such unbridled insolence that perhaps even he would not have revealed it while under the gaze of Mr Norrell, despite that gentleman's strange inability to perceive the highly objectionable behaviour of his servant.

"Do you require anything of me?" Lascelles asked Childermass, making sure that his voice dripped with the irony of his asking such a man such a question.

"No, sir," Childermass said. "I trust that you know Mr Norrell is dining with Mrs Godestone tonight."

"I did not know," Lascelles replied, "or why should I have come to his house?"

"A very good question, sir," said Childermass.

"I do not like your tone," Lascelles said, and took a step away from Mr Norrell's desk towards where Childermass stood in the doorway. "I have thought many times to tell you as such, but did not like to rebuke a servant of another man in his presence. I suggest that you correct it."

Childermass's posture did not alter one jot, but his eyebrows crept a small distance towards the long, lank hair atop his head, and his mouth twisted in a way that indicated he found much to enjoy in what Lascelles had just told him. "I am surprized to hear that," he said. "If I ever have done anything to offend your presence, I am sorry for it."

This obvious untruth was an opportunity for Lascelles to change his tone of haughty displeasure to one of a more threatening nature. He was most glad of this, for another thing he liked very much was to impress on another person that he was at heart a very dangerous man.

He crossed the remaining distance of the floor to stand closer to Childermass than decency would usually allow, and matched Childermass's smile with one of his own, although his contained a row of sharper, whiter teeth.

"You know as well as I that your conduct is most objectionable. Indeed, it astonishes me every day that you have remained in Mr Norrell's service, or the service of any man in the kingdom, for as long as you have. And it shall not be long, Mr Childermass, before I influence Mr Norrell to the same way of thinking."

Lascelles had hoped for the satisfaction of seeing Childermass recoil from him, even if only from distaste and not from fear; but to his surprize, Childermass leant even closer towards him, so that there was perhaps a hand's-span between them.

"Oh, I very much doubt that," said Childermass, and Lascelles felt the unpleasant sensation of his breath against his cheek.

It had been some time since Lascelles had had the necessity to lay hands on a person in order to intimidate them, since in the most part his words did this job to great effect. Here, he saw, was quite an exceptional case, and while he fancied that he and Childermass were equally matched in strength, he also fancied that Childermass would not expect this of him at this moment, thus gaining him the advantage of surprize. So he closed the distance between them with a hand upon Childermass's breastbone, which he used to push him roughly back against the doorway. This served both to knock Childermass's head against the wooden beam there and also to force him, at last, into an acceptably upright position.

It seemed that Lascelles's suspicion that Childermass had not expected this was borne out. While nothing like shock crossed his features, those eyebrows inched a little higher, and he drew in the breath of a person who has seen something of mild interest.

"I am not a man to be doubted," Lascelles told him, and held him tense against the door-frame, quite prepared to block a retaliative move.

But Childermass only continued to smile his very own smile, and said, "Is it your pleasure, sir, to be rough with a man in this way?"

This was in fact a question of some interest. As I have mentioned before, it certainly did please Lascelles to intimidate people in both word and deed, but he saw quite correctly that Childermass meant to imply a sexual gratification earned from these acts. Such thoughts did not in most cases enter the mind of Mr Lascelles, gaining as he did enough general enjoyment from the destruction of other people that he did not need to add another layer in order to find this quite pleasurable enough. However, the assumption was in truth quite fair, and there had been a number of occasions on which the two spheres of satisfaction happily collided.

Lascelles rather thought that although Childermass doubtless meant this comment to be insulting, it was delivered not with the gleeful disgust of a man who finds such things unpalatable, but with the glinting eyes of one who might like to test his own will in such a contest.

So in answer Mr Lascelles widened his own smile, curled the hand at Childermass's breastbone around his black neck-tie, and pushed the length of his body against Childermass's newly-upright form, holding him even more tightly in place.

"Such a question is not for you to ask," he said.

"Again," Childermass replied, "I think you shew me quite plainly that it is."

Lascelles had allowed himself to enjoy the pleasure of this moment of physical superiority in all its forms, and was much gratified to feel against his thigh that Childermass was granting himself the same permission. This, then, opened up a whole new set of opportunities. There were any number of sexual humiliations that Lascelles was capable of inflicting, and they flitted now across his mind. He thought of arousing Childermass to a state of excitement and then refusing to grant him release, or of causing him to spoil his clothing, or perhaps to damage one of Mr Norrell's books – but he quickly decided that any displeasure at this on Mr Norrell's part would in a roundabout way be visited on himself. He thought also of spending himself upon Childermass's person, or perhaps inside his person, although the latter seemed a prospect unlikely to be granted.

Perhaps Mr Lascelles considered his possibilities for a moment too long, for Childermass began to shift against him in a way that seemed to presage an attempt to gain the upper hand. But then, he reflected, if Childermass was beginning to excite himself, so much the better: it would be a most satisfactory thing to remain quite in control of oneself while Childermass did not.

So Lascelles loosened his grip on Childermass's neck-tie, and indeed made similar movements as Childermass had begun to do, so that they rubbed against each other in a most pleasing way. While at first Childermass smiled at him still, and looked him quite boldly in the eye, even when flicking his tongue against his lips in a most lewd fashion, he began after a time to look a little more possessed with lust in the manner of one indulging in such acts. His darkened eyes flickered once or twice shut, although they always opened a moment later and fixed again upon Lascelles's interested gaze, and his mouth parted with the ragged breaths he now drew.

Seeing that Childermass's state was somewhat more advanced than his own, Lascelles yielded himself for a short while to similar pleasures, content that his control over both body and mind was quite firm enough to prevent an unfortunate conclusion. He angled himself more precisely against one side of Childermass so that he no longer felt an answering pressure against his own leg, and set to work. Despite his personal distaste for Childermass, this interlude was most agreeable; indeed, his personal distaste, if anything, made it all the more so. But after a short time he noticed that Childermass's eyes had fallen full closed, and even that some undignified grunts escaped his throat, and decided that this was the moment to take a more forthright action.

Lascelles reached his hand down between their bodies to the place where experience told him he would find Childermass very near completion. But he was perplexed to find that, even without unbuttoning his breeches, it was most evident that the state of arousal he felt between Childermass's thighs was not at all of a kindred with the expressions he had just seen upon Childermass's face.

At the moment of this discovery, Childermass, doubtless feeling a hand upon him, opened his eyes. He regarded Lascelles with the cool, mocking glare with which he conducted all of his business. Taking advantage of Lascelles's surprize, he pushed him backward so that they stood against the opposite side of the door-frame, and Lascelles was now held fast against it. He reached down to unfasten the buttons of Lascelles's breeches before there could be any chance of protest.

Childermass's grip was firm and immediate, and with great precision he began to bring Lascelles towards the conclusion he had certainly not intended, at this moment, to reach. Mr Lascelles was much discomfited to feel his mouth fall open a little in muted surprize, and, worse, in muted excitement, for Childermass it seemed knew very much what he was about in these matters. Indeed, before Lascelles could utter so much as a word, he had felt himself cross into the territory from which no man endeavours to return, and before very long had spent himself across his good embroidered waistcoat.

It seemed that Childermass did not at this time desire a similar release. He only looked at Lascelles as one looks at a dog or some other animal that has done some objectionable thing, but to whom one cannot assign very much blame, since it is of course only a dog. Then he pulled the handkerchief from Lascelles's waistcoat pocket, used it to clean his hand, and replaced it.

"I thank you, sir, for this has been most instructive," Childermass said.

And with an incline of the head that bore a very distant relation to a bow, he left the library, where Mr Lascelles remained in a mess and a fury.

**Author's Note:**

> From [jsmn_kinkmeme](http://jsmn-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1273.html?thread=21497#cmt21497):
> 
> _This anon would like to see Childermass' and Lascelles' rivalry over who influences Norrell turn to some good old fashioned hatesex. Possibly in Norrell's library, though anywhere's fine._
> 
> If you liked this story, you can reblog it [on tumblr](https://justlikeeddie.tumblr.com/post/126453626987/a-peculiarity-of-the-iberian-peninsula)!


End file.
